So a lot of the problems people have with this type of method is getting started and getting their fields “out of the hole” as I’ve referred to it in the past. The idea I’m gonna throw out there to help with this matter will not be feasible for everyone but may be for some folks who have the time and the means to make it happen……It will get you immediately out of the hole...well relatively speaking anyways..... and probably by pass 5-10 years worth of soil building…..It’ll take some work to do but it’d be worth it if you could cut out that much time from the process……

For anyone who may have a front end loader on their tractor or even better yet…..access to a bulldozer…..You could probably pretty easily import a lot “biomass” from the surrounding habitat around your fields which would normally take years to grow. Take the FEL or bulldozer and just scrape the debris and top couple inches of soil away and move it into your plot until it accumulates a foot or two of soil and biomass on top of your existing field. I'm not talking about trees and big debris but just the leaf litter and rotten limbs, etc....That may not be feasible for fields of several acres but for your every day small kill plot of ¼ to 1 acre….it probably wouldn’t be too bad to do.

It would probably be best to do this right after hunting season ends because its gonna take some time to break that biomass down into rich soil. Its probably gonna take adding a decent amount of nitrogen to it as well to make it possible to do in a short period of time. I think what I’d do is to move the debris into the plot after hunting season and throw out some N onto it in the process….. then let it settle down for a while…..Once it warmed up enough I’d come back in with a heavy seeding of millet over the top and more N…..The reason for doing this is that a thick stand of something like millet over the top of the debris will be like putting a greenhouse roof over all of it. It’ll keep the conditions underneath warm, moist and rapidly decomposing. Once the first millet crop seeds out……cut it,,,add more N..... and grow another one.

Let me say that I’ve never done this before and its just an idea…..but I think it might be well worth trying on some of your smaller plots…..Just realize that a lot of debris is gonna really require you to throw the N on it for it to rapidly decompose. Try not to import a lot big woody debris and keep it to stuff like leaf litter and small understory growth. I think this would help get your smaller plots out of the hole a lot quicker than trying to grow the biomass needed in the beginning. It can be hard to do on small acreage when there’s even a moderate deer population present.